This report claims that charter schools get better results on standardized tests even as they receive less in revenues, making them more cost-effective. To support this claim, the report combines its own database of school revenues with results from another think tank that compares charter school students’ academic growth with matched students in public schools. There is substantial reason to question both the fiscal and academic outcome comparisons, but the report makes an additional critical error: When transforming academic outcomes into a common scale, it conflates test scores with academic “growth,” rendering its outcome measure invalid. It then compounds this error by using a simplistic “return on investment” measure that eschews the complexity found in serious research on education cost modeling. The report, consequently, is yet another methodologically flawed document that should be ignored by policymakers and stakeholders.

Suggested Citation: Weber, M. (2023). NEPC review: Still a good investment: Charter school productivity in nine cities. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved [date] from: http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/charter-productivity

The report advocates for the increased “portability” of school revenues, allowing for “money to follow the students” and, therefore, the expansion of interdistrict choice programs. It attempts to show that many current features of state-level school funding formulas inhibit such portability. While there are sound policy reasons to facilitate greater interdistrict choice, this report’s prescriptions are not sound, in large part because they betray a lack of understanding of a core principle of school finance: Different students in different districts have different costs to achieve educational outcomes. The funding portability systems touted by the report do not account for many factors that determine student costs, and thus the report's recommendations should be avoided.

Suggested Citation: Weber, M. (2023). NEPC review: Public education funding without boundaries: How to get K-12 dollars to follow open enrollment students. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved [date] from: http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/portability

Charter School Funding: Dispelling Myths about EMOs, Expenditure Patterns, & Nonpublic Dollars is the latest in a series of reports from the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas that purports to show charter schools are inequitably funded compared to public district schools. The report relies on a proprietary dataset to make its claims; however, the data conflict with publicly reported figures, and the methods used to create the dataset are not documented. The report’s analysis ignores several basics of school finance: Differences in student characteristics and school programming are not accounted for, categorical spending is conflated with potential profit taking from charter management organizations, and philanthropic giving is inadequately evaluated. The sparse documentation of the report’s methods, combined with basic flaws in its analysis frameworks, render it useless in guiding charter school funding policy.

Charter Schools in Newark: The Effect on Student Test Scores, published by the Manhattan Institute, attempts to estimate the effects of charter school enrollment on student test scores. The report exploits a random component of Newark’s school enrollment system to isolate the effect of charter schools on outcomes. This method credibly creates a natural experiment that compares outcomes between students who were offered charter seats and those who were not. However, the students who apply to charter schools differ significantly from the greater Newark student population, in that they are less likely to be English language learners or have special education needs. But the report never addresses this core issue of external validity. It also fails to note that teachers in the studied charter schools are less likely to remain in their jobs more than a few years, and fails to address a critical policy question: Can these charter schools’ financial models be sustained as they expand and enroll a different student population? While this report confirms previous work showing a positive charter effect on test scores in Newark, it fails to address these and other critical issues stakeholders must understand to formulate good charter school policy in New Jersey and elsewhere.

A report from Bellwether Education Partners contends that more funding should be given for charter school facilities. Focusing on a series of case studies in Idaho, the report argues that charter schools are unfairly denied funding for the construction and renovation of their school buildings. The examples the report relies on, however, are not “apples-to-apples” comparisons, and this makes any statewide generalizations suspect. Further, the report’s calculation of “costs-per-seat” ignores the reality that different students have different needs. Consequently, public district schools, which enroll proportionally more English language learners and students with disabilities, will likely have greater facilities expenses per pupil than charter schools. The report bemoans the fact that charter school facilities are not part of local school districts’ bonds and tax levies, yet it does not acknowledge that charter facilities are often owned by private entities. Mandating that local taxpayers support charter facilities would, therefore, force them to pay for buildings they would not own. Given these limitations, the report provides little guidance for policymakers and other stakeholders at a time when Idaho is working to overhaul its school funding system.

In 2010, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced, with great fanfare, a $100 million challenge grant for the support of a series of reforms in Newark, NJ schools. The two reports reviewed here are the first attempt at a comprehensive assessment of the impact of the Zuckerberg donation on student achievement. As such, the reports, which were written by a team of economists, have garnered significant attention. The reviewers evaluate the reports and their potential contribution to education policy research.

A report investigates the enrollment and achievement of students with disabilities and students with English language learning (ELL) needs in oversubscribed charter schools in Boston. The report concludes that Boston charters and Boston Public Schools enroll similar numbers of both special populations and that charter attendance has a positive statistically significant effect for those who enter Boston’s charter school lottery and then enroll after being offered a seat. This review finds that econometric models used to estimate the effects are appropriate, but also more limited than the report would suggest. The report finds some interesting patterns that deserve further study; however the effects cannot be generalized to charter schools outside Boston or even to most students inside Boston. The study also offers no context to compare the size of reported gains and it does not adequately examine how or why the reported test score gains are realized; for example, it does not account for peer effects or spending differences. Ultimately, while this report takes an important step in studying how oversubscribed charters may affect the academic achievement of special needs students, a closer examination is needed in order to accurately inform those making education policy.